We didn't see the Emperor explode. The emperor receded so far into the distance that he nearly disappeared. He became too small for us to see what he was doing. In that instant, we saw energy rise out of the pit. Someone who wants to say "unless we see a body, he's not dead," could easily say that was Palpatine performing some sort of really powerful force-lightning trick to slow his descent and escape.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yWR5jePoH8

But nobody ever says that. Because it's understood that when a villain plummets down a "bottomless pit," he's dead.

Heroes face a different fate when they fall down the pit: they always either survive or are transformed into some sort of powerful spirit (Captain Sisko, Captain Sheridan, Gandalf, Luke Skywalker... Jesus...)

There's zero chance, to my mind, that the Batman in the upcoming MoS sequel will have any resemblance to the Nolan Batman. He will be completely rebooted and the previous continuity will be ignored. Just as well, I'd prefer the excellent Nolan trilogy to be untainted by the shitty MoS and its inevitably shitty sequel.

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He will be completely rebooted but seeing as it will be by one of the same writers (David Goyer), I doubt very much that he'll be completely without any resemblance to the most recent incarnation. I'd expect them to be adhering very closely to the formula, with the obvious exception that this Batman will live in a world populated by superheroes.

I think the "no killing" rules are somewhat shoddy myself. Certainly a hero would be above that if they have a choice, but some situations they might not have a choice. I just hate the way, like in TDK trilogy, they establish it like a rule. To me, it's more common sense.

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Agreed. Although my problem is more with just the implausibility of it. There's no way Batman could get in all those fights with people, or throw people into walls and such, without inadvertently killing someone now and then, or giving them severe brain damage.

We see plenty of news stories where all it took was one punch to kill someone during a bar fight, after all.

And Superman is not always going to be able to imprison or throw into a dimensional portal every superpowered alien or creature he fights.

He will be completely rebooted but seeing as it will be by one of the same writers (David Goyer), I doubt very much that he'll be completely without any resemblance to the most recent incarnation. I'd expect them to be adhering very closely to the formula, with the obvious exception that this Batman will live in a world populated by superheroes.

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I expect it'll just be a slight variation of the Nolan Batman. His Gotham will probably still look like modern day Chicago and have the same grounded, realistic feel, and he'll still wear black rubber armor and drive a similar kind of big, tank-style Batmobile.

In fact they might even try to suggest that this is a further evolution of the Nolan Batman (albeit with Bruce still wearing the costume). At least in spirit.

But, as I said, I never believed that Superman left him there to freeze. Besides, the basic rule of thumb in comics is, "If we don't see a body, then they are not dead."

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Right. It must be remembered that we're talking about a movie that was made before the modern age of serious, relatively naturalistic comics. Actually the comics were getting more serious by the late '70s and 1980, but the Reeve movies were much more in the light-hearted, fanciful idiom of the Silver Age, for all their attempts to create a naturalistic setting for those fanciful tales. So the logic that applies here is cartoon logic. Zod, Non, and Ursa were ambiguously defeated, not explicitly killed.

I always found it ridiculous that studios have to race the clock to make film lest they lose the rights to a franchise. It's a perfect reason/ excuse to pump out shabby films.

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But what else are they gonna do? If you granted other studios license to your properties in perpetuity, with no strings attached, then those other studios could just sit on those properties indefinitely for no other reason than to prevent you from making movies out of them. These "use it or lose it" provisions are included to prevent that. The franchise owner can only make a profit if somebody's making movies based on their properties, and if the licensee isn't doing so, they're going to want to reclaim those rights for themselves. It's about keeping the licensees honest, ensuring that when they pay for the movie rights, they actually use them to make movies rather than just burying them to hurt the competition.

And yes, sometimes the licensees will just make shabby films to hold onto the rights, but that's true of anything else in the business -- a lot of filmmakers just do shabby work, period. In other cases, though, the studio puts real effort into making something that works well, that'll really be profitable and worthwhile and will get a popular franchise going rather than just being a minimum necessary effort to retain the rights. Paramount needed to get a Trek film in production before their option expired, but they didn't do it halfway; they threw their best effort into creating a big tentpole property. And Sony didn't just churn out a lazy Spider-Man reboot, but hired people who put a lot of creativity and skill into it and made something different enough from what came before to be worth doing. As for Fox, they've revitalized the X-Men franchise, they seem to be putting a lot more care than before into their upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, and they actually let the Daredevil rights revert to Marvel rather than rush an unsatisfactory film into production.

So just because the "use it or lose it" clauses can lead to cheap, lazy efforts to hold onto the rights, that doesn't mean they have to. After all, the franchise owners do have the option to buy back the rights, and if the licensees do a bad job with the property, then it loses value and it'll be easier for the owners to buy it back. So even just from a pure business perspective, it's in the licensees' interest to make movies that are worth something.

I think the "no killing" rules are somewhat shoddy myself. Certainly a hero would be above that if they have a choice, but some situations they might not have a choice. I just hate the way, like in TDK trilogy, they establish it like a rule. To me, it's more common sense.

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But there are common-sense arguments for superheroes not killing except as an absolute last resort. If they aren't state actors, if they're vigilantes or freelancers rather than cops or soldiers, then they don't have the authority of the state backing their actions. And that means that if they kill, they're exposed to homicide charges or wrongful-death lawsuits, and that could really hamper their activities, as well as turning the lawful authorities against them. Self-defense only counts if you have no opportunity to retreat or if you're in your own property (at least in New York City, which is kind of the default superhero setting); if you actively pursue the bad guy or voluntarily get into a fight with them and they die, then it's not legally self-defense. Well, unless it's a response to an imminent threat to the life of a bystander, so Superman in MoS could have a defense there. But you'd still need to undergo arrest and trial before the legal system would clear your name, and that would spoil any secret identity, and you'd probably be enjoined against any further vigilante activity.

So really, for a superhero or costumed vigilante to use deadly force, even if it were unavoidable, would likely be a career-ender for them. Thus, it's best avoided as much as possible, even aside from simple respect for the sanctity of life (which should obviously be the primary consideration, otherwise why even be in the heroing business?).

[Yes, but the basic rule of thumb in film and TV is, when the villain plummets down a bottomless pit, he's dead.

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No, the rule of thumb is that he's presumed to be effectively dead for the purposes of that particular story, but can easily turn up alive in a later episode or sequel. Many archvillains make a habit of turning up alive after seemingly unambiguous deaths, such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the Joker, and MacGyver's archnemesis Murdoc.

And the scene that followed was clearly a time-jump to some point in the future, probably days or weeks later.

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Given the Hiroshima-scale level of destruction in Metropolis, it would've realistically been more like years later. Neither the city nor its inhabitants could return to anything resembling normality in mere weeks.

For all you know, his actions will still be haunting him in 2015's Superman/Batman film. It may haunt him, and it may worry Batman, and that may influence the way they interact.

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They'd better, and Goyer has suggested that the sequel will deal with the aftermath. But that doesn't make MoS's failure to address the aftermath any less of a flaw where that film itself is concerned.

We didn't see the Emperor explode. The emperor receded so far into the distance that he nearly disappeared. He became too small for us to see what he was doing. In that instant, we saw energy rise out of the pit. Someone who wants to say "unless we see a body, he's not dead," could easily say that was Palpatine performing some sort of really powerful force-lightning trick to slow his descent and escape.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yWR5jePoH8

But nobody ever says that. Because it's understood that when a villain plummets down a "bottomless pit," he's dead.

Heroes face a different fate when they fall down the pit: they always either survive or are transformed into some sort of powerful spirit (Captain Sisko, Captain Sheridan, Gandalf, Luke Skywalker... Jesus...)

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But, they DID bring the Emperor back in the EU. Even Darth Maul, who was CUT IN TWO before falling into "bottomless pit" was brought back in The Clone Wars.

For whatever it's worth, this is what the script has to say about it: The Emperor's body spins helplessly into the void, arcing as it falls into the abyss. Finally, when the body is far down the shaft, it explodes, creating a rush of air through the room.

There's zero chance, to my mind, that the Batman in the upcoming MoS sequel will have any resemblance to the Nolan Batman. He will be completely rebooted and the previous continuity will be ignored. Just as well, I'd prefer the excellent Nolan trilogy to be untainted by the shitty MoS and its inevitably shitty sequel.

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I think it is pretty well established that Nolan's Batman could not exist in a world with super powers in the same way the CW's Arrow could never exist in the same universe with Smallville.

The Emperor not dying just strikes me as the usual EU fan wank. People have even tried to argue that after having his hand cut off, pumped with force lightning and thrown from a skyscraper, Mace Windu was still alive...

There's zero chance, to my mind, that the Batman in the upcoming MoS sequel will have any resemblance to the Nolan Batman. He will be completely rebooted and the previous continuity will be ignored. Just as well, I'd prefer the excellent Nolan trilogy to be untainted by the shitty MoS and its inevitably shitty sequel.

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I think it is pretty well established that Nolan's Batman could not exist in a world with super powers in the same way the CW's Arrow could never exist in the same universe with Smallville.

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The one caveat to that is the fact that the Nolanverse version of the Wayne Enterprises logo is shown in the film

I do think that there is some merrit to the idea that there probably should have been a stand alone batman movie before this. Not so much because Batman needs another origin movie...he certainly does not, but I do that that Batman is one of the few comic characters where it is important to establish the rules for the character up front.

Essentially we need to know...

1) Is the new Batman NEW or has he been around for awhile?

2) If he's been around for a while, what kinds of villans has he been dealing with (i.e. street thugs and mobsters...otherwise grounded lunatics...scientifically mutated freaks)?

3) Does Batman work alone or is there room for partners and sidekicks?

Batman is such a broad character that a Batman film would have been useful to set up just what kind of character this was going to be.

To be fair though, there is no reason that a World's Finest film could not primarily focus on Batman. Introduce us to the world of Batman by showing us how he views the sudden and violent arrival of Superman onto the scene.

One of the things that I could certainly see...and that would be connected to The Dark Knight Returns is that Superman might have to cozy a relationship with the government. Such a relationship might be out of necessity given that in this new universe, the military know's Clark's identity and is probably helping to keep the secret. Thats powerful leverage especially as he develops attachements to his friends in Metropolis. You could have a situation where something is happening in Gotham and this guy dressed as a bat is digging into things that the government (or one of its well paid contractors...cough...Lexcorp) does not want uncovered. It might be up to Bruce to school the big boy scout about who it is he's really working for and why that might be a problem.

Mileage varies and many will, of course, disagree with the article. I agreed with it because it expressed how I felt much more articulately than I was able. Its author might be considered a "mainstream" film goer. His name is Scott Mendelson. Some will agree; some will vehemently disagree, but it's good food for thought.

But what is the rule? Here's a list of the longest-running film franchises. I don't really see a consistent rule there; some have had long gaps prior to being rebooted or continued, while others have just kept going at fairly regular intervals, while others haven't had reboots at all.

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Rocky should clearly be in the 6 column, why no love for The Italian Stallion on that list?!

But what is the rule? Here's a list of the longest-running film franchises. I don't really see a consistent rule there; some have had long gaps prior to being rebooted or continued, while others have just kept going at fairly regular intervals, while others haven't had reboots at all.

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Rocky should clearly be in the 6 column, why no love for The Italian Stallion on that list?!

Godzilla is sort of on the borderline between having deliberate "rests" and simply stopping due to falling profits. The original film series went dormant in the mid-'70s due to box-office failure, then was revived for the 30th anniversary, but it was another six years or thereabouts before that revived series continued, due to studio money problems. They kept going long enough to finish with a 40th-anniversary film in 1994, and then deliberately went on hiatus with the intention of passing the torch to TriStar to make an American trilogy and then finally restarting their own series once the 50th came around. But the American film didn't do well enough to get sequels, so Toho rushed back into the game in time for the 45th anniversary in 1999; but as with the original series, the later films didn't do well at the box office and they were losing money by 2003, so they decided to end the series with one more film for the 50th anniversary. I think I may have read that Toho's hope was to resume the series on the 60th, but instead it'll be Edwards's movie that commemorates that milestone.

Thanks, Christopher. I knew you were better equipped to expound on Godzilla than I was. It does sound like he's had a good long run, though, possibly rivaling Bond's.

As is often the case these days, that graphic seemed heavily slanted towards modern franchises while slighting the popular series of past eras. Now that I think of it, I didn't see Andy Hardy, Tarzan, Ma and Pa Kettle, or Francis the Talking Mule either!